Someone brought their baby to work today. I don’t know if I can adequately articulate the feeling I get when I hear a baby crying in the office, but I’ll try. Dammit, I’ll try.

It’s fucking horrible.

People, come on. The reason you are provided two and a half months of maternity leave is so you can stay home from work to hang out with your baby. Accepting that maternity leave and coming in anyway to show your baby off to everyone who is now covering your workload? This confirms what I’ve suspected about 70% of the people who have children: they’re doing it to show off. To them, the baby is an accessory.

To begin, we all have work to do. If you were any sort of valuable employee before you got knocked up and took off for two months, we have extra work to do because now we’re covering your ass. Please respect our workload. It’s not like I’d rather work on my increasingly terrible posture by hunching over my keyboard, but I don’t really have a choice in the matter. I have to do this. Please don’t make it hard for me by fawning all over the place with a child in your arms.

While I understand that childbirth seems like a glorious miracle to you, to me it’s not that big of a mystery. If kids in my high school were doing it, it’s probably not all that difficult. Fucking congratulations, your genitals work. I should not be expected to stop what I’m doing in order to coo over your Carbon-Based Life Form of Wonder. I told you, I have work to do.

For all the mother-baby bonding you’re supposed to be doing on your time off, did it never occur to you that your time might be better spent not taking your kid outside on a cold as balls day in order to haul he/she/it into the office? I admit that I don’t know a whole lot about baby health, but it strikes me as a bit…well, fucking stupid to take a newborn out into 27 degree weather just so your co-workers – those would be the people whose only interest in you is dependent upon forced proximity for 40 hours a week – can see it. Parenthood doesn’t come with a manual, but what kind of decision making genius are you?

PLEASE MAKE YOUR KID STOP CRYING. I would never know there was a baby in the office if it wasn’t screaming its fucking face off every fucking time. Like I said, I have a job to do. It’s really hard to concentrate when a larvae-sized person can’t stop fucking crying over there. I may not know anything about child-rearing, but I do know this: your child is either wet, tired, or hungry. Remedy that situation and quit making it difficult for me to get shit done.

If you talk about breastfeeding one more time, I swear to christ I will smack that smug look off your stupid face.

Your baby’s face, too.

That stroller is an abomination. While the stroller my parents bought for me probably had as much integrity as an umbrella made of Kleenex and rope, that thing you’re pushing around could probably support/protect the Pope. I know it’s way early in the game and all, but I’m gonna give it to you straight…your kid is probably not a rocket scientist. They don’t need some NASA-designed babywagon to shuttle their noisy asses around. The only exception to the proposed size limit on strollers is the British baby pram. That thing could double as a hearse but gives me the impression that your kid could be another Damien, and I am fully down with that.

If you can bring your kid to work, I should be able to bring my dog. I don’t really think either are appropriate for an office, but if your offspring is allowed to scream within earshot of my cubicle, my dog should be able to shit in the middle of the conference room, no questions asked.

Oh, and when your kid gets older, don’t even think you get a free pass off work because you’re a parent. If your kid gets sick, hire a babysitter. Do what the rest of us do and go to work because it’s your fucking job. If you’re incapable of having kids and having a career, pick one and stop wasting everyone else’s time.

Bottom line: don’t bring your baby to work. Send photos like a normal person. Stay home. Keep your gigantic nipples under the nursing bra. I come here to be miserable on my own terms, not yours.

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About erineph

I'm Erin. I have tattoos and more than one cat. I am an office drone, a music writer, and an erstwhile bartender. I am a cook in the bedroom and a whore in the kitchen. Things I enjoy include but are not limited to zombies, burritos, Cthulhu, Kurt Vonnegut, Keith Richards, accordions, perfumery, and wearing fat pants in the privacy of my own home.